Fight for Him
by LetMePretendToCare
Summary: After Marco forgot their Friendship Thursday and instead spent time with Jackie, Star returns home to wallow in her misery where the last person she would have ever expected to understand helps her decide whether to leave her feelings be, or to fight for what she wants.


Star hummed happily to herself as she loaded her arms up with several cans of soda from the fridge. Bobbing her head to the beat of a song only she could hear, she danced back into the living room and spread the drinks out on the coffee table in front of the TV. She looked over everything quickly to make sure everything was accounted for.

Friendship snuggly?

Check

TV on and ready to play Fiesta De Lanoche?

Check

Pizza ordered and scheduled to arrive a perfect five minutes before show time?

Check

The only thing left was for Marco to return home from where ever he had gone to, and make his super awesome nachos then they'd be all set for their annual friendship Thursday nights. Just as she finished her thought she heard the front door open behind her.

Star squealed and bounded towards Marco, but stopped when she saw he wasn't alone.

"Oh… hello Marco, Jackie."

"Hey Star," she replied casually, unbuckling her helmet.

"Hey, sorry I'm back so late, Jackie and I were studying for the math test until the school closed the library."

"It's fine, you didn't miss anything." Star turned to Jackie and put on a bright smile that didn't quite make it to her eyes. "I'm always happy to have more people at friendship Thurdays!"

"Oh crap, is tonight Thursday?" Star did not like the way he said that, or the guilty look he shot her before speaking again. "I-I promised Jackie that I'd explain the rest of the chapter to her tonight."

Star felt like one of Ludo's monsters had just sucker punched her in the guy. He had forgotten their friendship Thursday.

"It's no big deal, there are still a few days before the test, we can go over it later."

"Um… okay, yeah, later, we'll do it later."

Star looked between the two, seeing both of their slightly downtrodden expressions. Marco awkwardly rubbed the back of his head while Jackie fidgeted in her spot.

"You know, maybe I should just go, it's getting kinda late," she said, moving to put her helmet back on.

"Are you sure, because Star and I don't mind?"

"Nah, it's cool, you guys go do your thing."

Jackie was already turning back to the door to leave, she and Marco could have their friendship Thursday after all.

Star bit her lip.

"You know what, never mind."

"Huh?" Marco blinked and looked back at Star.

"Yeah, it's no big deal, there'll be another Thursday in a week, you guys go ahead and do your studying thing."

"Star, I… no, I can't ask you to let me bail."

"Ask? Marco, you're not asking, I'm offering, there's a difference." She tried to make it sound like she normally did when she was teasing him, but it came out horribly forced. She darted behind and began pushing them both towards the stairs. "Now, both of you go."

"S-Star! You don't have to-"

"No buts Marco, you two go study, look I'll even give you some privacy."

Before either of the two could say anything, Star pulled out her dimensional scissors, cut a hole between dimensions, and hopped through before sealing the portal behind her. Several seconds of silence passed by before Jackie spoke.

"So… was that normal kind of weird for Star or…?"

"No, that was definitely not normal."

Queen Moon Butterfly should be furious right now. On top of the usual stress of running a kingdom and dealing with her husband's tomfoolery, one of her guards had come running into the throne room to inform her that her temporarily banished daughter had returned home without her expressed permission. And she had been furious, right up until the guard also mentioned that Star, upon coming home, had immediately locked herself up in her room and refused to talk to anyone. Now she stood outside her room, having dismissed the guards that were guarding her door.

Though she hated to admit it, she was nervous about going inside, because what she hated to admit even more was that, despite being a great ruler and experienced on how to be a good queen, she had never been very successful in dealing with her daughter.

"Having trouble your majesty?"

Moon yelped, snapping her head to the side to see the little blue guru floating beside her.

"My apologies, I didn't mean to startle you," Glossaryck said with a bow.

"Of course you didn't," she replied with no small amount of sarcasm and an eye roll. She turned back to face the door and felt her nervousness bubble up again. "I can handle diplomates, I can handle a teenage girl who's probably overblowing the issue."

Glossaryck looked at her with a deadpan expression before turning away. "Well, since you've clearly got this under control, I guess it's pointless to give you the advice I was planning on offering. Good luck to you, my queen."

He didn't even make it a foot before the queen stopped him.

"Wait! I-" the queen sighed. "I'll take any advice I can get, please."

Glossaryck smirked before wiping the look away and facing her again.

"My liege, you're not the first queen that's had trouble relating to their child, even you own mother needed my help in this regard more than a few times during your child hood." Moon's eyes widened, but she said nothing. "I'm going to tell you the same thing I told your mother and many other queens before her; forget that Star is a princess and forget that you're a queen. Right now, Star doesn't need a queen, she needs her mother. Let her cry on your shoulder if she needs to, listen to her problems and when she asks you what she should do, don't give her advice that's right for a princess, give her advice that's right for Star."

Several moments passed while queen moon simply stood and thought carefully about what he said, before nodding.

"Thank you, Glossaryck, your council is as immaculate as always."

Glossaryck smiled and Moon smiled back, before he faded out of view. Moon turned back to the door, still feeling her stomach clench, but this time her nervousness was accompanied by a feeling of determination. She put her hands on the knobs and gently pushed the doors open, peering into the dark room.

"Star… Star, are you in here?"

She received no answer, but when she stepped into the room and her eyes adjusted to the darkness she was able to make out a lump under the blankets of Star's bed that had a little bit of gold coloured hair peeking out at the top. Moon hesitantly walked forward and sat on the edge of the bed, reaching out for her.

"Star-"

"I know, mom," Moon recoiled a little bit from the curt reply, "I'm not supposed to be here, this is an abusing my magic, blah, blah. Can we do this later, I'm not in the mood?"

It stung to know that the first thing Star assumed she would do was lecture when she was obviously upset about something, not that she blamed her.

"Star, I'm not here to be angry with you. I came to see what's go you so upset."

"I'm not upset, I just want to be alone right now!" She snapped, pulling the blankets a little tighter.

Moon had to bite back a retort about how unladylike she was acting. Instead she put her hand on her shoulder and spoke in the softest tone she could manage.

"Please Star, if that were true then I'm sure you could have found a million other places on earth to be alone, let alone the multi-verse." She paused, screwing up all of her courage for what she was about to say next. "Listen, I want to start by saying I'm sorry. I've been acting like a queen to you and not like a mother. I've been too busy grooming you for your future that I've neglected you in the present and I'm sorry for that, I'm so, so sorry. I just want to help you now, so please talk to me, Star."

Nothing happened at first. Then Star slowly pulled the blankets off herself, looking up at her mom with teary eyes.

"Shh, calm down, sweetheart, everything's okay," Moon said when Star sat up and hugged her tightly.

After the two broke apart Moon looked at her daughter squarely. "Now Star, tell me what's gotten you so upset that you'd come all the way back home."

Star sniffled and wiped her eyes. "It's nothing, really. I don't even know why I'm so worked up about it."

"Never the less, tell me, I want to hear about it."

Star smiled and blushed a little, unused to so much concern coming from her mother.

"Well, the thing is that every Thursday Marco and I have our friendship Thursdays where we sit down in front of his TV with pizza and nachos and we pig out while watching Fiesta De Lanoche, but when Marco got home he was with Jackie, this girl he's been trying to go out with for forever, and they were going to study for a math test, so-" Star cut herself off when she noticed the absolutely baffled look on her mother's face. "Okay, so basically Marco bailed on this thing we've been doing together for months now so he could hang out with the girl that he likes."

Moon blinked then nodded slowly. "Alright, I… believe I understand. You're upset that Marco canceled on you, er… friendship Thursdays?"

"Well, okay yeah, I guess I am a little, but it's really not that big of a deal. We've been doing it for almost eight months straight, what's one day?"

"I see, so this girl, Jackie was her name? You don't like her, is that it?"

"What!? No, it isn't like that at all, Jackie's super cool and one of my best friends." Star looked down at the blankets pooling around her waist. "I even invited her over to my sleepover so Marco could have the chance to talk to her."

Moon's eyes widened as it finally dawned on her. "I understand now, you're mad that Marco canceled your plans to spend time with her."

"Yeah, but didn't we already say that?"

The queen sighed and tried again. "No Star, you're upset because Marco decided to spend time with _**her**_ and not _**YOU.**_ "

Star's cheeks went completely red as she scrambled back against the head board. "Wha- I- but- you-" after a few more unsuccessful tries to form a coherent sentence Star glared at her. "What are you trying to imply!?"

"I am implying nothing, just stating the obvious."

"Well you're wrong! Super wrong! There's nothing obvious and there's nothing to imply!"

"Star, calm down,"

"I am perfectly calm!" Star suddenly realized she was standing up on her bed. Taking a deep breath, she sat back down and gave her mother a calm look. "I'm not jealous, that's ridiculous, I'm the reason those two are together in the first place."

Moon raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"Yeah, I'm the one that pushed him to first talk to her, I helped him through his panic attacks, I-I invited her over so they could hang out, I even offered to let her in on Friendship Thursdays! Friendship Thursdays, mom!"

"You don't seem to sound very happy about that."

"What? Of course I'm happy, for them I mean. I'm happy for them. And why wouldn't I be? Marco's been obsessing over Jackie for ages and he's finally coming out of his shell. He's a great guy, a really great guy, and he… he deserves to be with someone as cool as Jackie." Moon noticed Star's voice growing more and more frantic. "So… I-I'm happy that he finally got her. I-It was a long time c-coming, a-a-and he deserves his… h-happiness. I'm happy for him. I'm happy f-for them, I-I'm h-happy… I'm…. I… I-I…"

Star trembled as tears rolled down her cheeks. She looked up at her mother through watery eyes before breaking down.

"Oh Star," she said, pulling her into a hug and softly stroking her hair. The two stayed like that for a while with Moon doing the best she could to comfort her sobbing daughter. After Star's had cried herself out and calmed her sobbing down to a light sniffling they broke apart. The shoulder of her dress was soaked in tears, but for once Moon wasn't concerned with how she looked.

"It's not fair," Star said, wiping her eyes, "everything was fine between us when we were just friends."

"I know it's not fair, life never is."

"Why'd this have to happen now? Even if I had a chance with him before, it's too late. He's got Jackie now, how could he ever look at me like he looks at her?"

"Star, I want to tell you a story from my childhood." Star looked at her, a bit confused but also curious, she had never heard her mother talk about when she was young. "Back when I was just a child, not even half your age, my mother and father took me to attend a gala in the Crystavian dimension. This was several years before dimensional scissors were created, so we had to travel by magical gates. Think of them as very large and inefficient scissors," she added when she saw Star's face. "Since these gates were so big, there were only one or two per dimension and unfortunately there wasn't one in the kingdom hosting the gala."

"Wow, sounds like a massive pain in the butt."

"Indeed. As we made our way through the countryside, our party was attacked by bandits. I was terrified out of my wits. My mother and father had gone outside to fight with the rest of our escort, leaving me alone with a few cowering nobles and one little boy. He was the son of one of our guards who had hidden with the supplies, only to be caught steal some of the noble's sweet-rolls." The memory made Moon laugh a little. "I was trembling with fear, too scared to even move, until he came up to me and offered to share."

"Aww, that's so cute!" Star cooed, the hearts on her cheeks glowing a little bit.

"Yes, yes it was, and that's how your grandparents found us, shaking, scared and our faces smeared with icing. After that day the two of us were inseparable. I begged my parents to let me see him until they gave in, and we spent every free moment we had playing together. Years passed, but we remained closer than ever, he was my best friend."

"I'm sensing a 'but' in here."

"But it didn't stay that way forever."

"There it is,"

Moon gave her a flat glare then continued her story.

"We were just around your age when he started his training for the royal guard. I can still remember watching him practice sword fighting with the others and running drills, waiting until he was finished so I could have my time with him, however I soon found out I wasn't the only one watching him. Without me realizing it, my friend had grown into quite the handsome young man and some of the girls from the city had started to take notice."

"Being a young man he certainly didn't mind the attention, but I did. Over time we began to see less of each other, I was being groomed to become queen and he was either in training or trying to woo some girl. I still tried to make time for him, until one day I found him kissing another, and that sparked my first feelings of jealousy. I was angry that he'd rather fool around with some girl he barely knew, I was angry that these girls were taking him away from me, but most importantly I was angry because it wasn't me."

"I reacted much like you did, shutting myself away and denied that I had fallen in love with him and wallowed in misery for several days until I couldn't lie to myself anymore. Then one day I simply snapped." She emphasized her last word with a snap of her fingers.

"What did you do?"

"I decided that I wasn't going to let him be taken without a fight. I was going to do everything in my power to show that I could make him happier than any of those girls, I was going to make him mine!"

Star sat with her jaw hanging open, seeing her boring and stiff mother in a whole new light. Moon chuckled and shut her mouth with a 'click', snapping Star back to attention.

"So, did you do it, make him see you as more than a friend?"

Moon nodded.

"How?"

Moon considered her words carefully, thinking best on how to answer in a way that would make sense to Star.

"In subtle ways," she eventually answered. "If I had just confessed my love for him out of the blue he would have run off faster than you did at your etiquette lessons. I made more time to spend with him, held his hand more often, lingered on his hugs for just a little longer than friends should, shared with him things I had never shared with anybody, my hopes with him, my fears, my weaknesses, and in turn he did the same."

Star quietly took in everything Moon said.

"But what if Marco doesn't end up liking me, and even if he does then where would we go? He's got his own life on earth and I'm going to eventually have to come back here to stay. How would that even work? And if by some miracle it did work and we lived happily ever after with each other he'd have to become the king of Mewnie, I can't ask him to take on that kind of responsibility!"

"Star, calm down," Moon cupped her face and forced her to look at her. "Those are all problems you can deal with as you come to them. For now just listen to what your heart tells you."

Star smiled, lunging forward and hugging her. "Thanks mom,"

Moon smiled and gently hugged her back. "Of course, sweetheart. Now, it's getting late, you better hurry back to earth before you start to worry Marco."

Star nodded, picking up her scissors with a determined look on her face, but before she opened a portal, she turned to her mother one last time.

"Hey mom, how did your story end, what happened to that boy?"

"Oh, you already know the answer to that question."

"I do?"

"Of course you do, when I ascended to the throne we got married and had a wonderful daughter named Star."

Star gasped, and then grinned. More determined now than ever, she cut open a hole to earth and leapt through.

"Don't worry, Star," she mused to herself, "you don't need to get him to fall in love with you, you just need to help him see how he really feels."


End file.
